Widespread networking issues caused by a defective line of chips used in modems

[BlueTemplar]

Now, this is a bit outside of your typical tech support ticket, but the issue seems to be both widespread and bad enough for this warning needing to be stickied on all real time multiplayer video games forums.

We seem to be in the situation where hundreds (?) of millions of effectively defective modems have been shipped to customers worldwide for several years now, causing (very ?) subpar connectivity for the persons concerned (the claim of 200ms latency periods seems to come up often ?).
(Also DDoS vulnerability ?)

The core issue seems to be (at least) with the Intel Puma 6 chip -
(Intel has confirmed the issue)
- but the whole Puma brand looks suspicious.
(The chip(s) might or might not be simply underspecced for the use in modems.)

In any case, this is between the modem maker (and/or ISP) and Intel, the end user *shouldn't* have to figure this out.
So this is more about the lack of quality control on the side of the modem maker (and/or ISP).

We're at the point where class action lawsuits are being brought against modem makers :
https://www.classactionlawyers.com/puma6
Non-exhaustive list of affected modems inside.

And god knows if it's hard enough to figure out networking issues without even having to mistrust your hardware !

The issue seems to having been made worse by the problems being undetectable by the simplest "ping" tools ? (Or even by "fixes" having been pushed that made them undetectable in this way ??)

P.S.: Mega-thread where this issue has been raised and tested :
https://www.dslreports.com/forum/r31122 ... Discussion

[Tertius]

This is a topic at least 6 years old. Most puma 6 devices are replaced meanwhile. Many devices got firmware updates that mitigates the bug. It's lost packets on maximum bandwidth use, seldomly encountered.

Simply forget it. It has no real impact. It's exaggerated.

[BlueTemplar]

Fair points. I was mostly surprised that I've never heard of this before and this has never been raised on these forums.

And a modem is not something that you would care about changing often. (Especially if it has a minimum set of functionalities that don't obsolete too fast ?)

My former ISP is still offering a 11 year old modem as part of a (now) mid range offer (though it *is* quite exceptional).

But I guess that it's "as long as it works", and there's a high likelihood of these Intel Puma (7+ too ?) modems having failed that check and having been replaced since..?

[Tertius]

My previous docsis device (Fritzbox 6490) had a Puma6 chipset, it was possible to provoke that issue with the documented workflow. It's possible to get inbound packet loss if the upstream is saturated, and some packets get higher than usual latency (150-200 ms instead of 10 ms) on considerable throughput. I wouldn't notice it, if I wasn't told about that bug at the time.
This might be of some issue with fast paced PvP shooter games if you play on some higher level, but totally irrelevant for everything else, including Factorio, especially for games that run on tcp or udp with explicit lost packet detection.

After a firmware update 2 or 3 years ago, it wasn't possible to get packet loss any more, and the latency improved.

For one year now, I have a docsis 3.1 capable device (Fritzbox 6591) that has a Puma 7 chipset, and it doesn't exhibit the issue at all.

I don't understand the fuzz that was made about it. It's simply exaggerated. Yes, the chipset has a flaw. Yes, devices with it and no firmware fix are inferior. You get what you pay. I assume it was just dollars in the eyes of that law firm that announced that "class action suit", perhaps in addition carried by the anger of elitist PvP communities who see every lost packet as personal insult and reason why they lost that match (instead of accepting having just being defeated by a opponent with a better skill level).

[BlueTemplar]

Well, I have now seen people complaining about having generally terrible Internet connections (including for plain Web browsing) until they switched modems - hard to say how typical their experiences were (and whether that was specifically the fault of that chip), but also how many people never realized that their issues were caused by this...